


A Flame in Your Heart

by themerrygentleman



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Not quite an AU, things are seldom what they seem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-17 04:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5854723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman/pseuds/themerrygentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper Wright is a small-time reporter living in Sanctuary Hills in 2077, with a humdrum everyday routine, dreams of a more exciting life, and a bit of a crush on her attractive neighbor. But when more and more strange things start happening to her, it soon becomes clear that this way of life can't last forever. What follows is the story of an intrepid journalist, a sleepy suburb, an impossible decision, and the end of an American Dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dear Hearts and Gentle People

_October 2, 2077_

_Sanctuary Hills, Commonwealth of Massachusetts_

* * *

The sunlight pouring through the window, and the bursts of early-morning birdsong that came along with it, woke Piper Wright up before her clock radio’s alarm would have. She smiled, stretching luxuriously—it was _so_ nice to wake up naturally, actually feeling well-rested for once, instead of being wrenched back to reality without warning.

The alarm went off a minute or two later, playing some jazzy number Piper vaguely recognized. She rolled her eyes at the lyrics, something about “losing all ambition for worldly acclaim”--she definitely wasn’t planning on _that_ any time soon. But still, it was a catchy tune, and she hummed along as she set about getting ready to face the day.

Maybe she was just talking herself into it, but somehow, today sure felt like it was going to be a good one.

It was getting chilly enough lately to justify wearing her favorite outfit, she decided—battered red leather trench coat, green scarf, newsboy cap, and all. She surveyed the end result in the mirror and nodded, satisfied. The whole getup was kind of silly, she knew. There wasn’t really any need to wear something so elaborate in a sleepy little place like Sanctuary Hills, and deep down she’d admit that the “PRESS” card tucked into her hat was maybe a bit much. But she was allowed a couple of eccentricities, right? And anyway, it made her feel more like a real journalist, even if she _did_ mostly just report on things like yard sales and fender-bender accidents for a newspaper that covered the humdrum existence of a couple of Boston suburbs. She was pretty sure that keeping up appearances had to count for _something_.

Piper took her time heading in to work. She lived within easy walking distance of the newspaper offices, and she’d woken up plenty early (for once), so she figured she might as well stop and smell the roses along the way. She made a point of waving and saying good morning to all the neighbors and passers-by she met—for a journalist, after all, it paid dividends to get in as many people’s good books as possible.

That tune from the radio was still stuck in her head, and she whistled it softly to herself as she made her way through the maze of quiet residential avenues. Sanctuary Hills was sure putting its best foot forward today, she thought: the sky was a perfect deep blue, and the trees lining the streets were starting to put on a real fireworks show of colors. A Mr. Handy robot whirred busily away in the Johanssens’ yard, picking up the fallen leaves scattered across the immaculately trimmed grass.  There was a crisp hint of chill in the air, just enough to make her glad for the coat, and she was happy to see her breath curling into the air in white clouds. Autumn had always been her favorite time of year. Soon enough it would be Halloween—she’d have to make a point of calling her dad back home and asking what adorable costume her kid sister Nat was planning to wear this year.

“Good morning!” a familiar voice called out, snapping Piper out of her reverie. Turning, she quickly spotted the source of the greeting: a tall, blonde woman with warm gray eyes, who was standing on the front porch of the house across the street, clutching a mug of coffee. None other than Helen Aldrin, a lawyer and one of Piper’s many neighborly acquaintances.

Or, well, if Piper was honest with herself, “neighborly acquaintance” didn’t _quite_ sum it all up. As she waved back, she hoped against hope that she wasn’t making some ridiculous face, but she knew it was no use—her treacherous heart had started beating faster the moment she laid eyes on Helen. Piper knew all too well that it was a terrible, dusty old cliché, getting hung up on a married woman and suffering in silence about it—and worse, it was just a flat-out waste of time and energy. She really should have forgotten the whole thing and moved past it months ago. But just try telling that to her heart: it kept right on pounding, sending a guilty thrill racing through her with every beat.

Piper shook her head, took a deep breath or two, and kept walking. She tried her best to make it look like she was in a hurry to go important places and do important things, no time to stop for chitchat. It probably wasn’t a very convincing act, but under the circumstances it’d have to do.

A few minutes later she’d reached the offices of the _Sanctuary Gazette_ (an unremarkable little one-story building halfway between Sanctuary Hills itself and the outskirts of Concord), and said good morning to the two co-workers who were already there. “Anything new come up that we should include in this week’s issue?” she asked them, more out of habit than any real hope.

Mark shrugged, scratched the back of his head near his bald spot, and took a hefty swig of his coffee. “Couple of notices. I forwarded them to your terminal. But don’t get too excited; it’s just the standard stuff.”

“Maybe we could, I don’t know, put a local spin on something the Boston papers are covering?” Piper tried. “People are saying this could finally be the big year for the Sox—I know that’s mostly Sandy's department over on the sports page, but there might be room for some kind of human interest story about the history of it, quotes from a couple fans, something like that…”

Mark was shaking his head before she even finished the sentence. “Make a good case for it and we might find room next week, but for this issue, things are  pretty cut-and-dried already. Sorry, Piper, but that’s just the way it is.”

There was clearly no point in beating her head against this particular brick wall any longer. Piper  sighed and installed herself behind her desk, armed with an ice-cold bottle of Nuka-Cola and a freshly sharpened pencil. Piper Wright, Ace Reporter, was ready to face a new day of crucial, hard-hitting journalism…which, today, apparently meant a full-page advertisement for fusion-powered lawn mowers, an announcement about an upcoming retirement party over in Concord, the latest high school football results, and an alphabetized list of locals’ birthdays. Yay.

She sighed again (making sure it was loud enough for Mark to hear), pushed aside the usual elaborate daydreams about uncovering corruption in high places and winning the Pulitzer Prize, and got to work on the formatting.

* * *

 After a few hours of work on all the fine details, Piper got ready to head out for her lunch break around noon—just one more step in the familiar dance of her working day. The sheer routine of it all grated on her more than she liked to admit, but after all, there weren’t all that many opportunities for thrilling variety in a little town like this. Maybe she’d spice things up and go somewhere besides her usual lunch counter, she told herself, trying not to feel too deflated at looking forward to something so paltry.

She pushed open the door to the office and blinked in surprise—there was a stranger making his way up the front path with long, purposeful strides. A blue van idled in the street behind him, the phrase “VAULT-TEC” emblazoned across its side in big block letters.

Piper frowned. _Vault-Tec…_ why was that name ringing a bell? The man himself didn’t offer any immediately obvious clues. His long tan coat, matching hat, and clipboard all screamed _salesman,_ and salesmen were a dime a dozen in this neighborhood. Normally, he should have stood out about as much as beige wallpaper, and Piper would have pointed out the NO SOLICITING sign by the front door and sent him packing. But for some reason, she couldn’t shake off the uneasy sensation of déjà vu he was giving her.

 _Probably just met him making the rounds the other day,_ she told herself, but when her instincts told her to pay attention to something, Piper Wright listened. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes as the salesman approached her. _Let’s find out for sure. Time to be a tough customer._

The stranger doffed his hat, beaming. “Good morning! Vault-Tec calling!”

Piper affected a thoughtful frown, as though racking her memory for something. “Vault-Tec…you know, I think I’ve seen you around here before. What is it that you’re selling, exactly?”

The salesman chuckled. “Why, we’re about _you,_ ma’am!” Despite his hearty, energetic tone, there was something _off_ about the words—they sounded plasticky, the way a frozen TV dinner tasted. “And about helping to secure _your_ future in the face of…” he trailed off and gave a significant cough. “…of unforeseen circumstances. The times being what they are. We can offer you complete and total…”

And that was when things got…weird. The man’s next word turned into a meaningless stutter of chopped-up syllables, skipping and repeating like a damaged record. Before Piper even had time to wonder what was happening, the world turned blurry and dizzy, sights and sounds sliding together, as though she’d just woken up with the mother of all hangovers. Piper squinted at the salesman, head tilted—her eyes were having the worst trouble staying focused. The man looked far away and blurry, and when his face briefly came back into sharp focus it looked different, _wrong,_ like leather left out in the sun…

It was over as abruptly as it had begun. The world went back to staying put, the dizziness and nausea ebbed away, and the salesman in front of her looked much the same as he always had, his painted-on smile failing to mask a look of faint unease.

Piper shook her head vigorously to clear it, and caught the thread of the salesman’s monologue again in mid-sentence. She’d clearly missed a pretty big chunk of it. “…name is already down on our list,” he was saying now. “It’s just a matter of verifying some basic information, if you have a moment, and then you can go on your way with abs-o- _lute_ peace of mind! How does that sound?”

Piper was still feeling too addled to even try putting on a polite face. She fell back on her oldest strategy: tell the unvarnished truth and let the consequences sort themselves out later. “Um, real sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I’m not feeling too well at the moment. Let me get back to you when I’m in a more, uh, legally binding frame of mind, all right?”

The salesman wasn’t thrown off for more than a second or two, after which he hitched his bright smile back into place. “Certainly, certainly!”

He tipped his hat to her. “I’m afraid that time is rather _limited_ on this particular offer—I’m sure you’ll understand. But I’ll keep making the rounds—come and find me whenever you can!”

Piper watched him go, biting her lip. She was halfway tempted to dismiss the incident as some sudden bout of illness on her part and think no more of it, but she found that she couldn’t make it leave her mind. Something about it didn’t sit right with her, and her instincts as a reporter were telling her not to ignore the feeling.

But the more she kept thinking about it, the more the whole thing started to feel kind of silly. Really, what exactly was she so worried about? She could barely even remember what had been bothering her about the encounter in the first place. On the face of things it had been a perfectly normal sales pitch. Anything weird about it had to have been just in her head. “Vault-Tec,” with all their dramatic talk of security, probably just sold fancy safes or something like that, and her random bout of dizziness was making her see suspicious circumstances where there were none. Really, it probably wasn’t worth thinking about any more—she was just making herself paranoid over nothing. She might as well just go find someplace for lunch and …

 _Hang on,_ said something in the back of her head, its voice small and distant but insisting on being heard. _This isn’t right. You were thinking about something important. What are you doing, forgetting about it all of a sudden? That isn’t you._

Her movements animated by a sleepy, buried sense of unease, Piper fumbled with a pocket of her coat, pulling out the small notebook she always carried everywhere. By the time she’d found a pencil, the memory of what had been bothering her was almost completely gone, more a vague unsettled feeling now than an actual series of facts.  Still, she had to write _something,_ so she turned to a fresh page, planning to jot down a quick sentence to follow up on later. _“There’s something weird going on with that salesman…”_

And then she froze, staring down at her notebook with wide eyes, and forgot how to breathe. The page she’d opened to wasn’t blank; it was full of scribblings and crossings-out and half-erased smudges. Looking closer, she realized that they were all pieces of the same sentence, started again and again but never finished:

_There’s something_

_…something going on…._

_….something weird is…_

_…There’s_

_….something weird_

And in the bottom right-hand corner, much clearer and darker, a note to self in her handwriting, followed by a cheerful smiley face: _Keep jumping at shadows and you’re gonna lose your marbles, Piper!_

Piper ran a thumb along the border of the page, and felt a whole sheaf of rough paper stubs: the remains of where page, after page, after _page_ , had been torn out and thrown away.

She didn’t remember doing any of this. She had no idea how many times this had happened—how many times she’d stood here, thinking these same thoughts, and then somehow forgotten. The anxiety that had been so close to just slipping away like a bad dream rushed back, making her breath hitch in her throat and her heart hammer in her chest, until it felt like she was being chased by something huge and unfriendly…

And then a quick, vivid scrap of a memory was flashing in front of her eyes, as though the real world had torn away like flimsy paper and left her staring at something else underneath it.

* * *

  _…she ran, boots coming down hard on the dry, packed earth, and the enormous thing behind her let out a raspy bellow and pursued, already getting way too close for comfort. It was a bulky, grotesque reptilian abomination, all wicked claws and protruding bony spikes, and she knew firsthand how much damage it could do if it caught up. No sooner had she had the thought then her foot caught on a gnarled, dead tree root, and she fell helplessly forward, feeling the creature’s hot breath on the back of her neck as she tumbled…_

_Before her brain had even finished processing the fall, there was someone standing over her, and the thunderous CRACK of a shotgun blast making her ears ring. More shots split the air as Piper got to her feet, shattering her world into a jumble of split-second impressions, life reflected in a splintered mirror. Dark reptilian blood spattering onto the bleached, dead branches. A tangle of blonde hair whipping around with sudden motion. Determination glinting in steel-colored eyes. A vivid blue jumpsuit with a yellow number 111 emblazoned on the back, hugging a really kind of amazing athletic figure ( Piper couldn’t help noticing, even at a time like this). A defiant yell, human, and an echoing roar, not human, that now sounded like it had a hole punched out of the middle of it. The dull thumping noise of the Deathclaw hitting the ground for the last time._

_The world put itself back together again, and there was Blue in front of her, her focused look softening into a smile as she offered Piper a hand. “You all right?”_

_Piper smiled back, and tried without success to tell herself that her heart was only skipping a beat because of the adrenaline. “Sure, Blue, I’m great. Just picked a really bad time to be a klutz, that’s all.”_

_Blue finished reloading the shotgun and nodded briskly. “Well, if you’re up for it, let’s hit the road again, and if we’re lucky we can be back in Diamond City by nightfall…”_

* * *

 Back in Sanctuary Hills, Piper came back to the present with a jolt, the notebook almost falling from her suddenly shaking hands. Where had that _come_ from…or, wait, no, that wasn’t the question. The question was, why did it feel like it had always been there?She was a small-town reporter who’d never faced a greater hardship than having to scramble to meet a deadline, so why did these impressions of dead forests and gun battles and… _things_ with big teeth feel like they belonged to her somehow?

 _Get a grip, already,_ she scolded herself, running a frustrated hand through her hair. That nightmare wasn’t her life. She was Piper Wright and she lived in Diamond City and she…no, no, that wasn’t right; she was Piper Wright and she lived in _Sanctuary Hills_ and…no, all of a sudden that felt wrong too…

And then there was the other person in that dream, or whatever it had been. The memory of her face had already slipped away, but Piper was left with a nagging feeling that it was important, and familiar, in the same way the salesman’s face had set off alarm bells in the back of her head.

The shaking wasn’t stopping—if anything, it had gotten worse—and she found herself having to fight back tears. Was it really possible to just lose your mind one day without any warning, the world ceasing to make sense like someone had flicked a switch?

No. There was more to this story somewhere. She just had to find it. Piper set her jaw, drew in a deep, steadying breath, turned on her heel, and made a beeline for her desk back in the _Sanctuary Gazette_ office. Lunch could wait. Only one thing in all of this mess was clear: she had some serious research to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the majority of this fic as part of thievinghippo's January Creativity Challenge, to which I'm extremely grateful for giving me the motivation to tackle something this ambitious!
> 
> I've worked in journalism and related fields for several years, which might have something to do with how quickly Piper Wright has become one of my favorite characters ever. The plot for this fic practically just fell into my head not long after I started playing Fallout 4--it felt really naturally suited to who Piper is as a person. Hopefully that'll become more and more apparent as the story continues!
> 
> And exactly what the heck IS going on? Well, it's probably possible to guess, but stay tuned to find out for sure...


	2. Worry Worry Worry

_October 2, 2077_

_Sanctuary Hills, Commonwealth of Massachusetts_

* * *

 

 "Vault-Tec" just plain didn't exist.

At least, that was the impression Piper was starting to get. Hissing out a sigh through gritted teeth, she let her head drop down onto the desk with a quiet _thunk_ , the cool wood of the surface soothing her overheated brain for just a moment. Sadly, the brief feeling of serenity didn't give her any new ideas about where to turn next. She'd done all the searching she could from her terminal at the Gazette office, and when that had failed to turn up anything, she'd started asking around the neighborhood. Someone else had to have seen that van making the rounds and heard the guy's sales pitch, right?

But no dice. One or two people had told her that they might have seen the van, but they had no idea what "Vault-Tec" was or what exactly it sold. The rest had just looked at her like she was crazy.

Which she was honestly starting to wonder if she was, actually.

More and more of those weird memories--if they were memories--kept flashing through her mind, whenever she was least expecting it. They never lasted all that long, just brief little scraps of image and sensation whipping by like someone changing the channels on a TV too fast. But they were long enough to stick in her mind, and they were all starting to add up to a pretty unsettling picture.

She'd see, for just long enough to know that she wasn't imagining it, a crumbling, broken highway overpass looming above her head, choked with tangled masses of weeds. Or a rusted gun lying half disassembled on a workbench. Or a misshapen creature like a bull with two heads, its hide the ugly, mottled pink of an old burn. Sometimes she didn't see anything at all, but instead she'd feel a dry, searing heat, or taste dust in her mouth, or hear gunshots that weren't there.

Being the lone witness to all of those haunting images of decay and collapse would have been creepy enough, but more often than not, when Piper found herself in that other world, she wasn't alone at all. Threaded through the visions were split-second glimpses of another person--that same woman in blue that she'd seen the first time. Piper never got a good look at her, and could never quite remember her face--she was perpetually off kilter and out of focus, a gesture here, a glance or a spoken word there, a strange companion always just out of reach.  Somehow that felt worse than being alone--whenever the woman in blue showed up, Piper's breath caught in her throat and burned there, and her chest felt weightless and strange with a whole tangle of emotions that she didn't have the words for.

She hated it. She hated all of it. Which was kind of ironic, she reminded herself, mouth twisting into a bitter half-smile. After all, this was exactly what she'd begged for every day of her professional career: A real mystery to investigate, something that sure as hell felt crucial and important. But the first rule of journalism was that you had to verify your sources, to never print anything that you weren't willing to stand behind as the rock-solid truth, and Piper's own head playing tricks on her did _not_ fall into that category. Facts, she could handle. Nightmares that surrounded her and refused to go away...well, that was something else.

At least there was one definite fact she could pull out of the whole mess. Everything she saw matched, in a sense--it was all ruined and rusted in the same kind of way, and enough specific details added up together to let her know she was seeing a lot of little glimpses of the same place, whatever it was. But it all slipped out of her hands the moment she tried to grasp it closer, too elusive to be anything useful. And as for piecing together what the hell all of those fragments of another place were supposed to mean...well, that still felt miles away.

 _Getting lost inside your own head still isn't going to prove anything,_ she'd reminded herself. _Can't use your own hallucinations as a credible source. But that doesn't mean you can't get to the bottom of this, dammit! One step at a time, Piper. Just focus on the facts._

And so, with evening shadows lengthening along the streets, she'd found her way to the library in Concord. She was still there now, several hours later, slumped over a desk, surrounded by countless documents and exactly zero helpful answers.

As much as she hated to admit it, it was probably about time she gave up looking for the night. She kept drifting, rows and columns of information blurring together in front of her eyes, and she could already feel a weary pulse at her temples, the beginning of what was sure to be a nasty headache tomorrow. But even though she could barely keep herself upright anymore, the need to know what was going on still felt like something burning inside her, and every time she considered just getting up and walking away, every fiber of her being cried out against it.

 _Might as well try the public records terminal in the reference section one more time,_ she decided. _Might have overlooked something. If nothing turns up, then fine, time to call it quits and go get some rest._

A few minutes later she was hunched over in front of the machine, navigating through menu after menu with absent, routine gestures like a sleepwalker, her weary eyes skimming down pages and pages of digital records that no one had probably ever bothered to look up before. It all flickered and doubled itself as her eyes slid in and out of focus, endless rows and columns of green text on black, green on black out to infinity. Piper was absorbed by it, at first, but it wasn't long before words stopped making sense, being absorbed started to feel more like being trapped, and her stomach ached with a dull, exhausted sense of regret. But then the words "Vault-Tec" jumped out at her, on a page she'd been just about to leave, and it was like a lightning strike to the nerves, jolting her upright once again.

Shaking her head vigorously, Piper started reading the page again, this time with much more deliberate attention. It was all a lot of dense legal-speak, and her eyes started to lose focus time and time again as she read it despite her best intentions, but the gist of it was clear enough. A few years back, the feds had commissioned Vault-Tec to build 112 structures, all over the country, for something called the "Societal Preservation Program."

 _"Societal Preservation," huh_...she chewed thoughtfully on the end of a pencil. _I think we can safely conclude that Vault-Tec does a lot more than just store people's valuables, then._

There was a quiet cough behind her, and Piper--who'd been totally lost in her own head--jumped about a foot. "Excuse me, miss?" said the librarian behind her, who at least had the grace to look a little apologetic for scaring her half to death. "Sorry to disturb you, but we're closing in five minutes."

 _Not now!_ Piper wanted to scream at him. But the poor man was just doing his job, and after all, this library had been putting up with her for years now. She bit her tongue and forced herself to nod. "Right, of course. I'll be out of your hair in just a second."

By the time she'd finished speaking, she'd already gotten out her notebook and pencil and was frantically scribbling down everything on the screen. No time to think about what the rest of it meant, no time to make even a token effort at legible handwriting--as long as it all ended up on the page somehow, the rest of the details could sort themselves out later.

Her pencil lead snapped under the pressure, and she swore loudly (earning dirty looks from the few remaining patrons) and scrambled to find a new one. But not for nothing had she been a reporter all these years: exactly five minutes later she was on her way out the door of the library into the fresh evening air, her hand aching like hell and covered in lead smudges, but with two full notebook pages to show for her pains.

Now the only question was what the hell to do with it.

* * *

Between the crisp night air against her face on the walk home, and the renewed drumbeat of excitement pulsing through her veins, by the time Piper got back to her place she could scarcely believe she'd ever been tired at all.  She switched on a lamp and dropped her notebook on the desk, then stretched her arms out and cracked her knuckles. Everything around her might be hopelessly confusing, but she sure as hell knew this routine inside and out. Time to burn the midnight oil until she had something that _meant_ something.

Figuring out where to start, as always, was the tricky part. As soon as she picked up a pencil, half-formed thoughts started curling around her like smoke, more and more of them by the moment. _I'm starting to think that....I'm afraid that....But what if it's actually..._ It wasn't long before it had all overwhelmed her, and she felt like throwing open the window just to get some fresh air.

She took in a long breath and let it out. _Focus on what you know, Piper. One thing at a time._

She started writing.

 

_-Vault-Tec commissioned for "Societal Preservation Program": 112 structures. Language seems to imply pretty large ones._

_-Government contract, details classified. Official records seemed to be talking around the subject. Oblique mentions of significant personnel hires, however._

_-Encounter with Vault-Tec salesman: Offered "absolute security" and "protection" because of "the times being what they are." Said "your name is already on our list."_

_-Brief lapse in consciousness/memory talking to salesman._

 

She hesitated, pencil poised just above the paper, and chewed on her lip. It was hard not to feel more than a little ridiculous about writing this next part down in black and white.

But what the hell, everything was important, right? She took a deep breath and started scribbling it down before she could change her mind.

 

_-Since salesman visit, have been seeing visions. Common themes: ruined/decaying cityscape, presence of another person (unclear). All seem related._

Piper set her pencil down and gave the list a long, hard look, staring until she could see a neon ghost of the letters whenever she closed her eyes. She had an uncomfortable sense that there was an answer here, just out of reach, some dark design hovering overhead that tied the whole list together and explained what the hell was going on.

She scribbled down another note.

 

_Vault-Tec expecting/preparing for nuclear war? Why?_

 

She hated to admit it, but it was just about the only thing she could think of that accounted for all of the facts. What else was there that made it necessary to build underground vaults for 'societal preservation'? But even so, it was a theory that raised just as many questions as it answered. 

Just like everyone else she knew, she'd always been aware that nuclear war was theoretically a danger--back in grade school she'd had to go through all of those cheesy drills about hiding under desks and keeping yourself safe from fallout. But realistically, there was no reason to believe a war was about to break out. Sure, there were countries that had nuclear weapons, the good old U.S. of A. included. But it wasn't like they had a pressing reason to want to use them all of a sudden. Right?

Tell that to the gnawing feeling of dread in her stomach. She wrote another note.

 

_If Vault-Tec is preparing for a nuclear war, why do I not remember hearing of them before today? What's changed?_

 

And another, one that took a little more hesitation before she could put it down in black and white.

 

_Visions of ruined landscape: connected to nuclear war? Anxieties turning up in dreams, or_

 

She erased the "or," wrote it back in, then erased it again. The end of that sentence was lurking in the back of her mind, but she wasn't quite ready to entertain such a ridiculous theory yet.

Another question:

 

_Recurring human figure seen in visions: Significance? Who is it?_

 

The scraps of paper were starting to accumulate, covering most of the battered wood surface of Piper's desk. If this kept up, she'd have to make a bulletin-board diagram with thumbtacks and yarn connecting everything together, just to keep it all straight. She had to admit, she'd always kind of wanted an excuse to do that. 

But right now, the words she’d written barely even looked like English, and her whole body felt gritty and wrung-out. _Everything will make more sense after a few hours of sleep_ , she told herself as she stumbled towards her waiting bed.

  
She didn’t quite believe it, but still, it was something.

* * *

 

In the end, there was no grand lightbulb-switching-on moment, no sudden, dramatic jolt of realization. The ghostly memories and familiar feelings just kept piling up, little by little, filling her dreams with glimpses of rusted cars and burned-out houses and strange buzzing things in the sky, until finally it was enough and the scales tipped over.

When Piper woke up the next morning, it was to a queasy feeling of disorientation. Somewhere along the way, those foggy glimpses of another place and time had stopped feeling like somewhere else, and had started feeling more like...well, like home. And now that they had, Sanctuary Hills felt different.

Somehow, everything that should have been cheerful and familiar just gave her a sick, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. On her usual morning walk into work, she found herself marveling at practically everything she passed: houses, cars, backyard patios, airplanes humming by overhead. Each new sight gave her another unsettled jolt, until it all added up to a constant drumbeat in the back of her head: _this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong._ She was damned if she could explain how or why, but somehow, she had a feeling down to her bones that she was a stranger in a strange land. What _was_ this place, with all of its soft pastel colors and bright lights and false smiles? How had she ever called it a home?

 _I_ _’_ _ve got to get out of here._ The thought came from someplace deep and instinctual inside of her, bypassing her brain entirely, so it felt like someone else was shouting it at her, again and again.

She walked quickly past Helen’s place, head down--she couldn’t deal with seeing her today, not on top of everything else.

But the world had other plans for her. She only saw the outline of someone standing at the window, caught just the briefest glimpse of blonde hair, but it was enough. And that was when the bolt from the blue hit her and the lightbulb flicked on. Just like that, she knew.

Her proper, put-together neighbor, all pretty dresses and picket fences, was the same person who had stood over her with a shotgun in that dream that wasn’t a dream, saving her life from a rampaging Deathclaw. It was real, all of it had to be real—it was just too vivid not to be. Piper had seen Helen’s gray eyes before, in another world, narrowed behind the scope of a carefully aimed rifle. Now that she was concentrating, she could even remember the faded yellow number 111 on the back of Helen’s Vault suit, almost matching the shade of her hair.

 _.._ _.wait a minute, Vault suit. Vault-Tec. Vault 111._

_...oh my God._

And just like that a whole lot of things came together, fitting into the landscape of her mind like she'd always known them, like she'd just been waiting to remember. It had been staring her right in the face the whole time. Piper knew who Helen was. She knew where she came from. And she might not have been exactly sure what she was doing here now, but she was starting to put together a damn good guess.

She stood there, still thunderstruck, her mind reeling, for several long moments. Around her, Sanctuary Hills went on about its day, tranquil to the point of boring. Birds sang in the trees. Wind rustled the leaves. Cars purred by on the street. But Piper's blood roared in her ears, her heart pounding like a Morse code message repeating over and over: _Run. Get out of here. Run. Run._

In the face of that kind of insistence, she had no choice but to obey. She kept her head down and walked as quickly as she could past Helen’s place--not quite a run, not exactly, but close enough as made no difference. She tried, without much success, not to feel too much like a coward for chickening out right when all of the pieces were starting to fall together. But she knew, after all, that it was just a temporary delay--sooner or later, and probably sooner, she’d have to come back here, knock on Helen’s door and face the music.

She'd just wait until she remembered how to breathe again.

* * *

She had no clue where she was going besides "away," but her feet fell into the well-worn path of her daily routine. Not long after, she was stumbling through the front door of the Gazette offices, a couple minutes late--a first. Her coworkers gave her a few strange glances, but none of them said anything--which was just as well. Piper wasn't really sure she was capable of small talk at the moment. She just muttered a few apologies on the way in, settled in at her desk, held her breath, and fought hard to stop her whole body from shaking.

Looking back on her workday after the fact, she wouldn't have been able to describe a single thing about it. She probably sat at her desk and typed, out of pure robotic habit, but for the most part she was miles away, lost in a world of mushroom clouds and shady government deals. The next moment she was distinctly aware of, she was walking down another suburban avenue, numb to the feeling of her own footsteps on the pavement, shadows lengthening around her.

Almost by instinct, she’d taken an unusual route home, just so she could avoid going by Helen’s place. She still felt like a coward, but she couldn’t help it: the revelation was too new and too raw, all the pieces still arranging themselves into a shape that made some kind of sense. The thought of talking to Helen face-to-face right now made her feel hot and sick and breathless, like she was on the verge of something—tears, or nausea, or God knew what.

The infatuation alone, she could have handled. She had _been_ handling it for a while now. But the absolute knowledge that she had stood with Helen in the middle of that strange, ruined world, and _known_ her...well, that changed everything.

She shook her head at herself, took in a few deep lungfuls of evening air, and started walking again, headed for home. Her mind was full of discordant shouts, and until she was composed enough to listen to one voice at a time, she’d be no good to anybody.

 _Turn your brain off for a little while, Piper_ , she scolded herself. _You need time before you can process this. You_ _’_ _re just going to worry yourself to death otherwise._

A few minutes later, she crashed down onto her mattress and let out a long sigh. All she really wanted right now was just a few minutes for her life to be normal and unremarkable, even boring, before it all started changing faster than she could cope with again. But she wasn’t too optimistic—it wasn’t like she’d been consulted before everything started turning upside down.

She sighed, reached over to her bedside table turned on the radio, mostly for lack of anything better to do. No news tonight, that was for sure, but maybe a little music would help. She was pretty sure she'd never needed to get lost in a melody more than she did tonight.

After a few bars of instrumentals, a jaunty male voice burst into song.

_We read in all the papers of the things that may come_

_Someone may get mean enough to drop an atom bomb_

_If one by chance should fall nearby while you'_ _re sailin'_   _through the sky_

_Just sit back, enjoy the ride, and bid the world goodbye._

_Relax and take it easy_

_You know what I mean_

_Don’t be nervous, don't get excited_

_It may all turn out to be just a dream..._

Looking back on this moment later, Piper would remain convinced that throwing the radio out the window had been absolutely justified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update to this story at long last! Sorry for the delay. I've been writing this fic out of sequential order, so as it turned out, I wrote most of the remaining chapters before I really tackled this one. Since this chapter involves a lot of introspection and a slow process of discovery, it was tricky to get right. Hopefully the end result is satisfactory! And on the bright side, this probably means that the next chapters will arrive somewhat sooner. 
> 
> Each chapter of this fic is going to have references to at least one song from Fallout 4's soundtrack. I've always loved the music selections in the Fallout series, and how relevant their lyrics are to the setting, so working them in is a lot of fun. 
> 
> Next up: Piper finally has to confront Helen! Stay tuned...

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this fic as part of thievinghippo's January Creativity Challenge, to which I'm extremely grateful for giving me the motivation to tackle something this ambitious!
> 
> I've worked in journalism and related fields for several years, which might have something to do with how quickly Piper Wright has become one of my favorite characters ever. The plot for this fic practically just fell into my head not long after I started playing Fallout 4--it felt really naturally suited to who Piper is as a person. Hopefully that'll become more and more apparent as the story continues!
> 
> And exactly what the heck IS going on? Well, it's probably possible to guess, but stay tuned to find out for sure...


End file.
